Niche Network

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A simple Show Within a Show gag. With the sheer number of television stations available in this day and age, a channel that only has programming which relates to a single hobby or niche can be viable. Think "The Golf Channel" or "Soapnet" for real life examples of this. Naturally, these niche' networks aren't all that appealing to people who aren't interested in the networks' subject matter. Some shows like to exaggerate how uninteresting these channels are to non-hobbyists. They do this by having a character turn to a channel that only runs programming about an unbelievably inane subject 24 hours a day.

The gag works because the channel is boring in two different ways. Even if you somehow manage to find the boring subject matter intriguing, the channel is implied to be repetitive ("We're all X, all the time" or "X, 24 hours a day.). As if that wasn't enough boredom, some shows add to this gag by having an extremely bored sounding man narrate the channel's programming in a bland monotone.

To put it simply, a show you're watching makes up a TV channel. If the gag works, you'll be asking yourself one question about that channel. "Who would watch that boring crap?"

Examples:

Spoofed in Transmetropolitan, where one of the channels Spider gets is the "lonely male virgin channel". The one show we hear about is essentially an X-rated version of Charlie's Angels.

One Dilbert strip had a network that consisted entirely of videos of Ratbert slapping himself while singing Barry Manilow songs. And it was apparently not the stupidest channel that cable company had to offer.

Shining Time Station had the kids introduced to television via Schemer, who showed them such channels as footage of babies crying.

Though not TV networks, the 'guest newspapers' from which Have I Got News for You takes some of its fill-in-blanks headlines for the final round are basically this trope. And they're all real.

In Jim Henson's pilot for Inner Tube (which would later become The Jim Henson Hour), Kermit hawks the Inner Tube cable system, claiming there's a channel to match one's IQ, income bracket and clothes. Some samples include the Millionaire's Shopping Network and the All-Kitchen Utensil Channel.

The Jim Henson Hour has many such channels (which Kermit picks programming from), including "The Fashion Doll Channel", "The Guest Star Channel", "The Time Channel" ("all the time all the time!"), "The All-Dog Network", and a channel devoted to talking garbage.

Kermit: A channel devoted to nothing but garbage?

Bean: Welcome to America.

An episode of America's Funniest Home Videos had a segment that parodied niche channels. The channels featured were "Polka Planet", "The Fashion Channel", "Toilet TV", "The Belly Button Network", "The Chiropractor Channel", and "Tin Ear TV".

Radio

The Martin Molloy radio show did a fake ad for its fictitious pay TV network which included "the Hat Blocking Channel. All hat blocking, all the time. <beat> We don't know what we were thinking either."

The gag also appeared many times in the 1990s animated adaptation, Garfield and Friends. Some examples include "The Potato Channel" (in which a man lists all the different ways to prepare potatoes), "The All Snail Racing Channel", and "The All Lasagna Channel."

Duckman had "The Lets Talk In Pig Latin Network", "The All Potato Cakes Network", "The Mismatched Buddy Comedy Network", "The Roadkill Identification Network" and "The Skin Disease Network", all in the same episode.

Johnny also once had a bear named "Chronos, The Master of All Time," watch the "Tree Channel" to try and cure his insomnia.

The House of Mouse short "Hickory Dickory Mickey" had "The Tick-Tock Channel". Sure enough, with Mickey trying to drown out the annoying tick-tock and an annoying clock, guess what the only thing is that the channel plays.

I Am Weasel had The Airplane Channel, which is pretty reasonable. (This was the gimmick of the real-life Discovery Wings channel before it became the Military Channel.) At the end of a Wright Brothers documentary, the brothers decide to toast with a root beer float, after which the channel inexplicably becomes the Root Beer Float Channel.

The same episode also showed glimpses of the Cat Shaving Channel, and the Grandma Channel. The Root Bear Float Channel was where Chicken finally decided to cancel his cable subscription.

This was a running gag on 101 Dalmatians: The Series. Various channels on the pups' TV set included "The All-Dog Network", "The All-Cat Network", "The Gravy Channel", "The Poultry Channel", "Swine TV", "The All-Fashion Network", and various others.

In The Powerpuff Girls episode "Daylight Savings" the Professor gives the girls a curfew. The villains take advantage of this and when the Professor tries to watch TV, all the channels he switches to are discussing how Townsville is doomed. He finally finds one that is talking about something else: the time channel. On this channel, Sonny Dial presents the up to the minute time. This reminds the Professor he forgot to set the clocks back, so he can sends the girls back out to save the day.

Daria featured the Pigskin Channel (a decade before the launch of NFL Network) and a fashion channel.

Fashion Channel is very reasonable, there are many networks with strong emphasis on fashion.

The Littlest Pet Shop (2012) episode "To Paris with Zoe" has the TV in the pet shop stuck to the Bread Crust Channel, then the Insect Channel. The latter consists of unaltered footage from a camera left at a landfill.

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